It wasn't so long ago that the only message to be found in restrooms were the ones you likely didn't want to read.  It seemed to be the last sanctuary from buy-me-now sloganeering.
    Not the least of it was the question of just what do you say to someone standing at a urinal?
    That problem has been solved (Try humor, as in Urine Luck), as have a number of other issues, and suddenly restroom advertising is hot stuff, attracting mainstream advertisers who wouldn't be caught dead hawking their wares in America's public johns even two years ago.
    Targeting is easy. You get one sex or another, and  occasionally both. You reach practically everyone, for obvious reasons.
   The question is, how do you buy a bathroom door or the space above a urinal? We are here tell you.
    This is one is a series on how to buy the new out-of-home venues. They appear on Mondays.

Fast Facts:

What: 
Poster advertisements--a.k.a "indoor billboards"--placed primarily in upscale bars, restaurants and health clubs.

Who: 
Dozens of companies create, place and maintain the ads. Surprisingly, most of them are specific to one local market. For this review, Media Life has talked with a national, a regional and a local player.

Markets: 
The U.S. is one of the world’s best-covered markets according to Tony Jacobson, vice president of AJ Indoor which places ads in 46 cities nationwide. Inside ads are gaining popularity in Canada and Europe.

How it works:
    Trendy clubs, restaurants and arenas do well as indoor billboard sites. Clients choose where they want their posters placed, including whether they want to buy men’s restrooms, women’s or both. Technically, the indoor ad company pays rent for the sites.
   While most companies target a single geographic area, some regions include multiple states and a few companies, including AJ Indoor, are national. 
   Advertisers can target demographically, geographically or by gender profile. Many indoor companies allow advertisers to individually pick locations.
    "Advertisers are able to choose exact locations in a market. They can also choose what products they want to advertise in men’s and in women’s. Women’s (restrooms) are an intimate atmosphere where you can place something like Tampax. We’re trying to do more with cosmetics, putting beauty boards with ads for shampoo and nail polish right next to the vanities," says Jacobson.
  The advertiser can supply art, but some indoor ad companies have art departments that also can design a campaign. Large, national brands that are placed nationally generally use their own art, says Jacobson, while smaller, local businesses use their in-house art department.
    Sizes vary. AJ offers 8 1/2 by 11 inch, 17 by 11 or poster size, which runs 17 by 22 in the men’s room and 17 by 33 in the ladies’ room. Some companies offer a 11 by 45 for above urinals.
    Some companies sell an entire restroom. For example, if there are a half-dozen billboard spaces in a restroom, they are all sold exclusively. A company can, however, use different art or promote different products.
   Ads are mounted, often in frames, and installed. Some companies use high-impact, non-scratch Plexiglas to protect the ads.
    Indoor advertisers produce the posters, install and maintain them.
    Timelines vary with number of markets and art production. AJ needs four to five business days to get the boards up, with a three-week lead time to choose locations and print and mount ads.
   American Indoor needs three days installation time for every 100 locations.
    Some indoor companies use sophisticated computerized tracking to verify ad postings.
   

Numbers:
     "We get very accurate counts from locations on how many people frequent them in a given month," says Craig Roberts, sales manager for San Jose-based American Indoor.
     "They’re counting the number of dinners served, they’re scanning health club cards. In a bar or health club you get almost 100 percent visitors to the bathroom at some point. For restaurants without bars it’s 25 to 30 percent."

Research:
- What products/categories do well? The medium has been popular with startup businesses, but as it becomes more popular it has also became more mainstream. Recreation, entertainment and travel and leisure all do well on restroom walls. Jacobson of AJ Indoor, one of the few national companies, says that on a national level tobacco, beer and wine are strong.
- Medium targets are usually singles 21 to 40 with large disposable income.
- Time spent with the medium is an average of two minutes.
- Recall rate is 62 percent. (source: Market Intelligence, Crystal Lake, Illinois).
- According to The Media Audit of Houston, 52 percent of the indoor advertising market are college graduates, 49 percent have used a major credit card in the past six months, and 41 percent are frequent flyers.
     Additionally, according to data provided by Barbour and Monroe Marketing Research, 64 percent of respondents classify their occupations as professional, managerial or sales.
- Studies conducted by Arizona State University, Rice University and Barbour and Monroe found that:
- 98 percent of viewers surveyed had a positive or neutral reaction to the ads.
- 84.4 percent recalled seeing a specific ad.
- 92.5 percent of that group could name specific advertisers without prompting.
- 88.5 percent of those who recalled seeing a specific ad recalled at least four selling points.
- Impressions from indoor or restroom ads are 40 percent stronger than from typical print ads.
- Print ads are viewed for 3 to 5 seconds while indoor or restroom ads are viewed for an average of 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.
- Restroom ads are most effective when used as part of a multi-faceted campaign according to AJ Indoor.

Making the buy:
- Ad costs generally fall into the $50 to $100 per month range. specifics from companies.
- Posters at AJ range from $140 to $200 per month depending on the location, with twelve month contracts running $150 to $200. Other variables that effect price are number of locations, length of contract and poster size.
- At American Indoor the cost ranges from $20 to $80 per month depending on location.
- Discounts can be negotiated for multiple sites and long-term contracts.
- American Indoor, a Western regional indoor company covering Arizona and California, charge $100 for graphic design and $1 per copy for full color printing no matter how many copies are needed.
- Contracts vary in length. AJ offers one to twelve months with a one month cycle being typical. American Indoor prefers six month contracts but will go 4 months. "The reason we do this is that we sell hundreds of locations one a time," says Roberts. "We can do smaller buys for shorter term."
- AJ deals with agencies on the national level and advertisers on the local level. American Indoor averages 75 percent of their business directly with advertisers and the remaining 25 percent with agencies. "The agency attitude of turning their noses up to the idea of bathroom advertising is slowly changing," says Roberts.
- With 60 to 90 days lead time AJ will open a new market at an advertiser’s request.

What’s unique:
- Two Columbus, Ohio, entrepreneurs took inside advertising a step further with computer screens that displayed sports scores, in addition to rotating ads. The experiment lasted two years before the fledgling company folded, according to the folks at Howl at the Moon, a brewery where the sports screens were tested.

Who’s already on bathroom walls?
Ford, Chevrolet, Dayton Hudson’s, Miller beer, Harvey-Davidson, Aveda, Cellular One, Taco Bell, Holiday Inns and Southwest Airlines are a few of the name-brand companies advertising on restroom walls. Plastic surgeons and laser eye clinics are doing well in health clubs.

What they’re saying:
"Toilets don’t have remove controls. It’s a captive audience."--Industry pitch used by more than one salesperson for indoor billboards.
"Dot.coms are coming on board slower that I expected. From a branding standpoint, they’re a natural." -- Tony Jacobson, vice president of AJ Indoor

Web site info:
AJ Indoor at http://www.ajindoor.com
American Indoor at http://www.bathrooms.com

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